


Geeking Out- Philematology

by mythras_fire



Series: Geeking Out [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, Romance, Science, YouTube
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-11
Updated: 2014-06-11
Packaged: 2018-02-04 05:16:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1766866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mythras_fire/pseuds/mythras_fire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“J, what’s the name for people who study kissing?” Tony asked.</p>
<p>Steve’s eyebrows shot up. “You mean there is such a thing?”</p>
<p>Tony grinned, “There’s a name for everything, babe. Humans are obsessed with labeling things.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Geeking Out- Philematology

**Author's Note:**

> This part makes more sense if you read part 1 first :)

“Mmmm, I like that one,” Tony sighed contentedly into the kiss Steve was bestowing on Tony’s neck. He was sitting backwards in a swivel chair, leaning into the back of it while he googled the 124 types of kisses for their “experiment”. Steve usually left the fact-finding missions to Tony when the computer was involved. He straightened up and put his fingers, still damp and cold from being washed in the bathroom, on the spot he’d just kissed on Tony’s neck, just to make the man jump from the sudden change in temperature.

“Dude, watch the cold fingers!” came the totally manly shriek a moment later as Tony tried to shy away from his touch. Steve grinned at his victory. That was his revenge for making him blush in front of Agent Barton earlier. He didn’t really mind it all that much now, but it had been difficult for him at first to adjust to “PDA” as Tony called it, so he liked to give as good as he got.

Steve bent down again and breathed out some hot air over the sensitive spot, earning a shiver and another sigh. “All better?” he said in a low, sultry, pseudo-apologetic voice.

Tony turned his head to steal a proper kiss. “Getting there.”

Steve smiled in reply and turned to look at the screen. “Any luck?”

The engineer returned his gaze to the results page, and after a slight pause said, “Nopes, not so much. Are you sure there were 124 of them?”

Steve furrowed his brow in concentration. He stood up once more and pivoted on his heel until he found one of the ubiquitous cameras poking out of strategically placed holes in Tony’s living room. It still felt weird to just ask a question of the air so he preferred to look into a camera when addressing Tony’s AI. “JARVIS? Did I get that part wrong? I thought I remembered seeing it mentioned in the Scientific American article the other video Clint and I were watching cited in their description box.”

_“You were correct but for one facet of the study, Captain Rogers,”_ JARVIS replied kindly. 

“Oh, what facet was that?”

_“The study was carried out over a two-and-a-half year period wherein the researcher collected data on 124 scientifically-valid kisses by different pairs of people. To be considered scientifically valid, the kisses had to meet certain criteria, such as being a face-to-face kiss, with no luggage pulling either party off balance to one side or the other, and could not be a culturally-embedded type of kiss such as a peck on the cheek.”_

Tony was intrigued by the second criterion. “J, what’s with the luggage variable? Did this study take place in an airport or something?” He was suddenly reminded of the vignette he’d watched when Love, Actually came out about how that movie was borne from the writer/director/whoever taking note of all the emotional comings and goings at Heathrow or somewhere. “That was a fun movie. Chick-flicky but the porn movie couple were fun,” Tony absentmindedly mused out loud to himself with a smile.

Steve’s head swung over at the mention of “porn movie couple” and wide blue eyes met Tony’s sparkling brown ones.

“British movie. Tell you about it later. Better yet, we’ll watch it. You’ll like it.”

Steve didn’t look terribly convinced based on what he’d heard so far but Tony’s taste in cinema intrigued him so he figured he’d go on faith with this one, too.

Apparently deeming it safe to reply, JARVIS answered Tony’s question. _“Yes, sir, Dr. Güntürkün, a biological psychologist at Ruhr University in Germany, carried out his study in all manner of public places, spurred on by his observations of couples kissing in the terminal during a five-hour layover in the airport in Chicago. The study was not on types of kisses but rather the side to which each person turned their head to engage in the kiss. The full title of the study was ‘Head-turning asymmetries during kissing and their association with lateral preference,’ published in –”_

“Yeah, yeah okay, you can skip the bibliography.” Tony got up to turn the chair around so he could sit properly in it to face Steve, his hand brushing across the super soldier’s thigh as he did so. “What’s the name for people who study kissing?”

Steve’s eyebrows shot up. “You mean there is such a thing?”

Tony grinned, “There’s a name for everything, babe. Humans are obsessed with labeling things.”

_“Philematology, sir.”_

“Ooooooh sexy!” Tony snarked. Steve chuckled.

“Want the English version of that explanation or have you been brushing up on your ScienceBros jargon?”

“You’d think I would have, I’ve been spending enough time around you and Bruce in the lab,” Steve replied amiably. “I’m going to guess that it had something to do with wanting to see if people tilted their heads more to the right,” he demonstrated with a small tilt of his head to the right and then back the other way, “or to the left when kissing? Like maybe the way they study how many lefties there are versus righties?”

“You, sir, are even more brilliant than you are beautiful,” Tony praised his boyfriend as he tugged him in closer so that he could whisper, “and you’re fucking gorgeous,” before pre-empting any sort of retort about modesty with a fiery kiss to Steve’s lips.

Steve squirmed with feelings he couldn’t really describe as he sank down onto Tony’s lap to deepen the kiss. “Guess you’ve been rubbing off on me in more ways than you thought, huh?” he teased when Tony had to come up for air. They had found out the hard way early on in their relationship not to wait for Steve to come up for air because Tony had almost blacked out a couple times from lack of oxygen.

Tony groaned in pleasure at the fact that Captain America was making dirty jokes at his expense. He buried his face in the national icon’s neck, luxuriating in the sweet smell of the Dior Homme cologne Steve was wearing.

“Hah, guess so.” After a deep sigh, Tony pulled back enough to face Steve and settled his arms around the other man’s waist. “J, what was our lateral preference just now, I wasn’t really paying attention.”

_“Both Sir and Captain Rogers tilted your heads to the right initially.”_

Tony tapped his chin contemplatively. “Interestink, verrry interestink,” he said in his Mad Scientist voice.

Steve just rolled his eyes in amusement. “This is going to be the new experiment, isn’t it?” he asked rhetorically.

“Why, Cap, you know me so well,” he replied, grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

“But how are we going to collect valid data if we’re aware of what the criteria are and already thinking of our lateral tendencies?”

“Oh fuck yeah! I love it when you talk nerdy to me. Guess we’ll just have to keep each other distracted…”

Steve threw his head back and laughed at this whole situation in which he’d been lucky enough to find himself. Tony took advantage of the open buffet line directly in front of him and brushed his bearded chin up and down the large expanse of skin, eliciting giggles, squirming, and all manner of soldierly behavior.

When Steve finally caught his breath and looked back down at Tony, he managed to ask, “Oh yeah, and how do you propose we do that?”

“Probability odds require LOTS and LOTS of repetition in order to yield statistically significant results…” Tony supplied, trusting Steve to take it from there.

“Ahhhh, yes, indeed. Well then, I guess we’ll get to discover those 124 kisses after all. In the interest of science, of course.”

Tony leaned in to resume their count-down. “Mmmhmmm. Now, where were we?”

JARVIS put another tally down for the right side.

And the left.

And the right.

And upside down…


End file.
